Betrothed to the Bandit

Chapter Six

Lydia could hardly believe her predicament. It was almost laughable that she’d ended up in this situation, similar in many ways to what she’d endured in New York. Once again a man she’d fallen for had stolen from her. Once again she must figure out a way to survive it.

Any way she looked at it, Dean’s explanation of the stagecoach robbery painted him in an unfavorable light. Either he was stupid, thinking holding up a coach was the best way to go about acquiring money instead of getting a loan from the bank to help his employees or…

…Or he was a liar and thief: he didn’t have employees, he wasn’t a miner, he didn’t invent anything, nothing about him was true. This was the far scarier possibility. That meant he had completely bamboozled her and was a dangerous man. She’d never forget how afraid she’d been during those tense moments on the lonely prairie after he’d shot the wheel and the coach had come crashing to a halt. She’d never forget her despair when he’d wrenched the last of her belongings from her hand, adding insult to injury.

Now that she was stuck with him, she had to be smart and not allow any further derision toward him to escape her lips. The same characteristics that initially had attracted her to him now frightened her—his tall stature, his work-hardened arms, his booming voice. Polite indifference seemed to be the best course of action until she could escape from him, and she resolved to show him nothing but that for the duration of her stay.

Lydia moved to the sofa, taking the quilt with her. She’d just endured a fraught, silent breakfast with the bandit and was anxious to be as far from him as possible in the one-room cabin. He retreated to his desk and, after organizing it, began to write or draw something on paper. His back faced her, which she was grateful for. She didn’t want him looking at her or talking to her at all.

As he scratched away on his paper, thoughts of her harrowing attempt at escape during the snowstorm flashed through her mind. Before leaving the cabin, she’d been certain she could find the path and make her way to town. She had convinced herself that even if she couldn’t, she would rather freeze to death than stay in a room with the stagecoach bandit. But after she’d jumped out the window and walked for some time toward what she thought was the path, the pain of the cold along with fear had found her, and she’d tried to walk back to the cabin. That was when she’d become totally lost. She’d all but resigned herself to death until she heard Dean calling her name, bringing sudden hope. She’d been able to put her fear of him aside enough to walk toward his voice.

“How did you find me in the storm and find your way back to the cabin?” she asked. Her curiosity caused the question to spring from her before she could think to stay quiet.

Dean set his pencil down and turned toward her with a concerned expression. “You don’t remember the rope or how I tracked my footprints back?”

She shook her head. “All I remember is trying to stay awake enough so I could hold on to you.”

Dean scrubbed his hand around his face. “I tied a rope to the window,” he began. He proceeded to tell her the details of how he’d rescued her, including how he’d ventured beyond the edge of the rope tracking her footprints and knowing they might be filled in before he made it back to the rope.

His explanation of rescue did not match her newly formed opinion of him. To her, only an honorable man would risk death to save a woman. She’d never known a man like that in her life. “I can’t believe you risked death to save me,” she said.

“Why can’t you? It was my fault you were out there. Your fear of me made you run into danger.”

“Yeah, that’s true,” she said, but it still didn’t make sense to her. Perhaps a good man would feel guilt for driving her to such fear, but surely a bandit wouldn’t.

“Not that it wasn’t incredibly foolish of you to attempt such a dangerous thing,” he said, scowling. “You nearly froze to death.”

“You’re the foolish one,” she retorted. “You’re the one who held up a stagecoach. I still don’t get why.”

“I told you why,” he said, standing. He strode to the other side of the side of the cabin and grabbed his pipe on the fireplace’s hearth.

“Right, right, to recover phantom money because you didn’t think of getting a loan secured by your supposed patent earnings.”

“Christ almighty, you really believe nothing I’ve told you,” he said, striking a match against the black mantel. He lit his pipe and breathed in the tobacco. He exhaled and said, “I’m not the liar and thief you think I am.”

“If you’re not, then you’re stupid. Those are the only possibilities, like I said.”

He let out a low whistle as she threw up her hands. “I just told myself I wasn’t going to be rude to you, that I should be polite to avoid getting you mad enough to hurt me. I’m so angry at how this turned out I can hardly help myself. I had an idea of you in my mind, and it’s been shattered.”

He stared at the fire. His expression was troubled when he looked at her again. “I won’t harm you, Lydia. Say whatever you want about me and I’ll take it on the chin, but please don’t think you’re in danger. You’re safe here. I promise.”

Tears sprang to her eyes at his words, spoken so earnestly, but they did not hold as much meaning as they should. “You already did harm me.” She sniffed and furiously wiped a tear from her eye, angry at herself for appearing weak.

“I never meant to,” he said softly. “You weren’t supposed to be on that coach.” He walked toward her, which she didn’t appreciate. She shrank into her quilt and willed him to walk away.

He held out a strip of white cloth. “For your tears,” he said.

She snatched it, deciding it would be the easiest way to be rid of him. She wiped her eyes with it as he walked to his desk and picked up a stack of paper. He returned and sat next to her on the sofa.

“What are you doing? Leave me alone.”

“Trying to prove I’m not a liar. I told you the truth about who I am. Remember Mr. Conner from the mercantile? He spoke of my invention. Most of the town knows about it, and it’s not a lie.” He held out a piece of paper, which showed a drawing of four cantilever beams, simply supported, along with their measurements. “This is what I first thought would prevent the collapse of a mine. I built this with a couple of other miners in the spring of eighteen seventy-six. It seemed to work, but something was missing.” He set the page aside and showed a new drawing, which contained a T-bar and latticed wood. “We added this to our cantilevers. It was good, but the cracks allowed airflow, which destabilized it, so I kept thinking and drawing.” He showed her more pages of different designs until he arrived at the last page. “This is what I discovered. It was my eureka moment. This is what’s patented.”

Lydia was interested in spite of herself. She held each drawing and examined it, noticing the fine details and meticulous measurements. There was an elegance and practicality in the designs, as well as objective improvement in each one that was apparent even to her, someone who had never set foot in a mine.

“It’s impressive,” Lydia said, handing the papers back to him. She believed him. He was a true miner and inventor. At least he hadn’t lied about that.

“You believe me, that I am who I say I am?” he asked.

She looked at him warily. He was so close she could smell the tobacco cloves on him and see the depths of his dark eyes rimmed with worried lines. “Yes, I believe that,” she said. She let out a long breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. She felt some of her fear of him seep out of her.

He nodded and gave her a gentle smile. “That’s a relief. Tomorrow I’ll prove I’m not a thief.”

“How?”

“Actions speak louder than words, like you said, so I’ll wait to show you.” He stood and walked back to the desk with his papers. He returned a short time later and sat next to her. This time, she didn’t shrink in terror beneath the quilt.

She’d spent the better part of a full day in abject fear, and her body suddenly felt weary. “I’m not as afraid anymore,” she murmured, as her head dropped forward. She knew she was moments away from falling asleep. “I thought I might be going crazy. Your letters to me felt so real. I didn’t want to believe they weren’t.”

“They were real,” he said. “Everything I wrote to you was true.”

“It still doesn’t make sense. That robbery, I don’t get it…”

She must have fallen asleep then because the next thing she knew it was dark. She awakened to find herself in Dean’s bed with a lit oil lamp beside her. She sat up and saw that Dean was sleeping on the sofa with a quilt. He must have carried her to the bed in her sleep. She lay back down against the soft pillows, thinking that moving her was quite presumptuous of him, but pleased that the bed was more comfortable than the sofa. She drifted off, feeling confused but safe.